What's that Smell?
by Toppyrocks
Summary: Lily comes home from a night out to find James has baked her up a surprise. One-shot.


Lily Evans Apparated outside the door of the flat she shared with her fiance, James Potter. She was just returning from a night out with her friends. James was surely waiting up for her, even though she had told him not to. It was all she could do to go out without him, he insisted on going almost everywhere lately, ever since the war had reached an even higher stage of danger. She pulled a key out of her pocket and wiggled it into the keyhole in the door. It was an enchanted key, made to work only for Lily and no one else, and also needed a spoken word to work. Just another precaution they had taken for the war- one of many. Everything was double- and triple protected, they had safety charms on the whole flat to keep out un-wanted intruders.

Lily turned the key at the same time she muttered the pass-phrase. The door swung open and she stepped inside, locking it behind her.

"Hello?" She called into the house quietly while she took off her shoes and hung up her jacket on the old wooden coat rack that stood behind the door. Her jacket fit perfectly beside James's. Hers, a small, tan jacket with a faux-fur ruffle and belt around the waist, beside his, a bulkier black coat made only for comfort, but still managing to look fashionable.

"Lily!" James' voice came from farther in the flat. So he was still awake, like Lily thought he would be, even though it was past midnight. "I'm in the kitchen!" He called. Lily hung her hat on a hook before walking down the hall and into the kitchen.

"How was your night?" James asked. He stood up from the chair he was sitting in and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"It was good, James, really good," Lily smiled. "We had a really good time. Marlene thought it would be a good idea to…" She trailed off. Something was different.

"To what, Lils?" James asked.

"To go to that restaurant we heard about," She said, not looking at him anymore. Instead, she was looking around the kitchen over his shoulder. "James, what's that smell?" She asked. The kitchen smelled… different. Good different, not bad different, but still different.

"Oh!" He said. "I made you something."

Lily's eyebrows arched in confusion. "What?" She asked. James turned away and strode across the kitchen. He lifted up a plate off the kitchen that had a bowl resting upside down on top and carried it over to Lily.

"Look," He said, his hazel eyes twinkling. Lily glanced from the upturned bowl to James face- which was grinning- and back to the bowl again. She slowly reached forward and lifted the bowl off of the plate. She gasped.

"Where did you get this?" Underneath was a heavenly- looking chocolate cake. It was glazed with chocolate icing and still moist, nice a freshly made.

"I made it!" James announced, rather proud of himself.

"What?" Lily was stunned.

"I made it." James said again.

"Since when can you bake?" Lily asked him suspiciously. "You can't even make soup from a can without burning it, so how'd you pull this off?" She said.

"I have my ways," James winked. "You want a piece?" He asked her.

"Now?" Lily glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 12:36 am, and they both had to wake up early the next morning for Auror training.

"Why not?" James asked.

"Well…" Lily started, torn. Really, they should go to bed. It was too late, though, James already had plates and cutlery out, and was pulling out a chair for her to sit in. "Sure," She said.

"You cut," James passed her the knife and pushed the cake toward her on the small kitchen table. Lily sank the knife into the chocolate cake and served each of them a big piece.

"Mmm," She mumbled. "Thmmf elly goo, Mms," She mumbled through a mouthful of cake. It was still warm from the oven and the icing was soft. It was delicious in all of it's chocolaty glory.

"What?" James laughed. "What was that? You might want to try swallowing first, Lils."

"This is really good, James," Lily repeated.

"Thanks," He said. "You know, I was just really bored, waiting for you-

"I told you not to wait up for me," Lily said, jabbing her spoon in the air at him in a mock-threateningly way.

"I know, but did you think I'd listen?" He shook his head. "Anyways, I was bored, and I thought 'I know what Lily likes, she likes chocolate!' So I made you a cake."

"So where did you learn how, then?" Lily asked him before shoving another spoonful of cake into her mouth.

"Oh, you know, in all my twenty years I've learnt many things," He shrugged. He knew that he was just making Lily more and more curious.

"James Potter, I swear, if you don't tell me, I will throw the rest of this piece at you!" She lifted her plate off the table and shook it.

"But Lily, the cake!" James said. Lily narrowed her eyes. "Fine, fine," James put his hands up in defeat.

"Good," Lily put her plate back on the table and continued eating. "Now spill," She ordered.

"Summer after fourth year Mum told me I had to get out of the house and do something 'productive' other then hang around our basement playing exploding snap with Sirius. So she entered me and Sirius in a baking class at the local college."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "Sirius can bake, too?"

"Ha! No, he can't. He spent the whole two weeks trying to slip sour milk into some dorky kid's mixing bowl. He even started a fire in the oven one day." James laughed out loud at the memory. Lily grinned. "_I_, however, managed to retain at least a few of the lessons as well as stealing the half cup measure from the teacher and hiding it in another cupboard. It had her really stumped, and she spend over an hour one day trying to find it," He smirked.

"James!" Lily scolded, whacking him across the arm.

"What?" He yelped. "I could've done a lot worse, couldn't I?"

"I suppose so," Lily said. She scraped the plate clean stacked it on top of James' empty plate. "You know, James, eight years and you still surprise me everyday,"


End file.
